Boca Chica is a small and nice place in DR where everyone should visit on one of their travels to this wonderful Caribbean country. Even it’s a nice city, this hotel is a total loss of money and I recommend that you look for somewhere else to stay for your vacation or business trip unless you do not have a choice. Let me start from the rooms which looked run down and smelly, it was unkept and that was not okay. The beds in the room were hard and the air condition was not working so I think it is safe to say I had the worst holiday here. It is a place you go to if you are on a budget vacation and don’t mind mould, dirt and rude attitude from the front desk staff. There is nothing as worse as living in a house with a dirty toilet and that was exactly what I had, I survived through the night and left the next morning, it was a nightmare for me. The food here was of less value because there were very limited options and limited fruits as well. Don’t get me started on the bad and rude attitude of the staff at the front desk especially when I asked to change rooms as I couldn’t stay in that one and they said they didn’t have any other free room to give out. The beach was full with annoying vendors trying to get you to buy stuff and also it was dirty. They need total upgrade if they want more customers.

Stayed for 1 week with my husband, we were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary and decided to go to Boca Chica as it has one of the best beaches in the dominican republic, the only downfall to staying here is that our flight from Manchester only flew to Punta Cana Airport so we had a 3.5 hour transfer to the hotel, i personally enjoyed the trip the bus we had was air conditioned, we stopped half way for a drink and something to eat and the driver we had was very informative.

Your Arrival:
upon arrival to our resort the Hoteteur, the reception area was lovely and was all open plan, first impressions were good and it didnt take very long to get our room key and towel keys, the staff at receiption were very friendly and polite

Rooms:
we stayed in block 15 room 104 and we had a ground floor room with garden facing and verandah, we were opposite the buffet restauraunt.

the room itself was rather dated, old furniture and could do with a fresh lick of paint and some touching up of the plaster in the bathroom, but the room was very large with two double beds, a large wardrobe with safe inside (you have to pay around 14 dollars for a week rental of the key for the safe), chest of drawers, large bathroom with shower/bath but was clean which was the main thing, the air conditioning however was immensely noisy and we found that we didnt really need it on during the evening as it was cool enough anyway, cannot imagine going there in the hottest season with that noise anyway.

Restaurants and Bars:
the buffet restraunt was opposite our hotel room and had a very large variety of foods available each evening, unfortunately the food was always luke warm or cold and my husband didnt like anything there at all, i myself could find something to eat each time

you do get an evening in one of the a l'acarte restraunts and tehre are two of them, there is the italian restraunt at the beach and the carribean restraunt in the hotel grounds

the food at the italian was nice, we had the soup to start (minestrone) and i went for pizza for main course althoug we did go with another couple and one of them had the seafood linguine which he said was lovely and for a change, this food was piping hot, the staff were good there and very friendly

Beach/Pools/Grounds:
the Beach of the hotel is located at Boca chica beach which was an absolutely stunning beach, there is a section cornered off from the mainn beach purely for hotel guests and they have lots of beds (although most of the beds were old and saggy) and they have some sheltered beds there too, as long as you dont go on one of the beds near to the small wall which separates the private beach to the public beach you will not be bothered by the locals who are trhing to sell you anything from fresh coconuts, boiled eggs, calamari, 6 foot paintings, scarves, sunglassess etc... there is a bar at the beach also that is part of the hotel so if you are all inclusive then you can also use this bar, the italian restraunt located at the beach is also a buffet lunchtime doing some salad, burgers and chicken dishes each day

to get to the beach you have to walk across the road from the hotel (they have an armed security guard who watches you cross) then you walk through some lovely gardens, its probably a 5 minute walk to the beach and a lovely one at that, it was also secure with armed guards in the gardens and at the beach - dont however think that you will be able to snorkel there and see loads and loads of fish, i saw 3 the whole time we were there but i have been spoilt as i was in Sharm El Sheikh in november 2009 and saw the most amazing fish/corals

there are 2 main pools at the hotel and each has a smaller pool for children, the pool water was lovely and they did games at the main pool each day like water polo, volley ball etc, we had a lovely time, always lots of beds available and there is also a bar there which does lovely hot dogs and burgers with salad available lunchtimes

the grounds are really nice with lots of trees and bushes and flowers and are kept really really well by the gardeners

Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel:
when we got to the hotel and had our welcome meeting with Hulio Ceesa, he offered us the various trips and excursions etc... but as we were only there for 1 week we only wanted to go on one trip to go snorkeling and he quoted us around 120 englisn pounds for the two of us, we decided to wait as this was only our first day and when you are down on the beach there is an excursion company there who will do it cheaper, we paid approximately 75 english pounds for the two of us to go to the Katalina Island tour which included pick up at our hotel at 7.30am, bus drive to la romana port which took approximately 2.5 hours (with stop on the way) then the boat to the island, we did stop off for a 45 minute snorkel which was really good then went to the island, the trip included all our drinks on the boat, soft and alcoholic, all snorkeling equipment including life jackets, snorkel mask, pipe and fins (although we took our own masks) and it also included a BBQ style meal on the island which was really nice and had a good variety of salads, hot and cold side dishes like potato's rice and spaghetti and then pork chops and chicken bbq, the staff were nice and we didnt feel pressured at all on the island, we were however disappointed tthat we couldnt explore the island much as it was very commercialised and was really just a small beach on one side of it with some small huts selling craft wares and souveneirs, the beach however was really nice and although there are a few corals there, you have to swim a long way to get to them and there were quite a few fish at the corals, there were a couple closer to shore and if you take some bread, they will feed from your hands

the hotel also had entertainment nightly, some of it was really really bad and the highlight was the Michael Jackson night, this was great, they also had a karaoke night which wasnt that good, and nightly bingo sessions

Other Comments:
to be quite honest, we didnt feel safe out of the complex as there was a lot of poverty in the area and lots of armed guards everywhere so we didnt go to the town itself, the only places we went were the grounds of the hotel and the beach and i did go to the ATM Machine in town to get money to pay for the trip, nobody there seems to accept mastercard, the ATM was a drive through however i felt quite safe there as the guide went with me

I did however have food poisoning on the last but one day we were there, not sure if it was undercooked omelette for breakfast but i was as sick as a dog and stayed in bed for 36 hours

i wouldnt dismiss this hotel for someone wanting just a quick break however i'm sure that if you could fly to Santa domingo this would be a great place to go however the food wasnt the greatest and as we didnt venture outside the hotel we are unaware of where you can go do eat

when we do go back to Dominican Republic we are going to stay somewhere near to Punta Cana Airport, i quite fancy Bayahibe, it looks lovely and we will be paying more for a hotel and going for something a bit more fancy with more choise of ala carte restraunts, will probably book a 5 star or something similar

apart from the bad food, my food poisoning and the not venturing out of the hotel, we did meet up with another couple from England and at least made some friends out of it, the majority of the people who stay here are french, german, american, canadian and french canadian

Posted by: Emily on May 31, 2011 >
2 contribution(s) United States of AmericaVisited on: Jan, 2011
| Leisure | With Group1288people found this review helpful

In a nutshell: you get what you pay (well more I think).

We got an amazing deal on a package with airfare which amounted to basically a $30/pp per night stay (double occupancy).

It is far from a luxury resort but it is clean, the staff are amazing and the beach is to die for. We had a great time.

The grounds are very well kept and very pretty. The rooms are a different story. Very outdated. The beds are hard, the air conditioning is questionable at times, the shower curtain is like tissue paper and there are no toiletries of any kind included. That being said, the rooms were very clean and if you give just a small daily tip (which you should anyway) you will get extra special service and proabably some flowers.

The people who work there are beyond friendly and helpful. They will bend over backwards to help you. The food is mediocre but again, for the price, it wasn't bad and we always found something.

Loved, loved the beach. It's about a 2 minute walk max and there is a pathway that is guarded with staff (not that its really necessary. There is a bar and a restaurant that serves lunch daily. The staff down there are particularly fun and friendly. There are some free things to do and some paid that they will push on you a bit but they aren't too bad. The beach is also marked off by a small rock "wall" which keeps out the vendors. They will still try to sell to you from the other side. You will have to cross it to go to the ocean but if you're firm they'll leave you alone.

All in all it is well worth the money to stay here but if you're looking for luxury, this is not the place. Also, since it's so cheap, you don't feel bad eating meals out or hitting the bars in town occasionally. We are going back again in January '12.

We had a group of 10 of us with 5 rooms.. rooms were clean, staff was excellent... food was ok..always found something I would eat and I am a picky eater... fun shows.. entertainment involved us every nite.. beach was nice.. liked the fact that venders couldn't come up past rocks..so you could shop as they walked by but they couldn't hound you.. would go back again.